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The Galleries at CSU Celebrate the Work of Archie Rand

Posted on August 19, 2016 at 12:18 PM, updated August 29, 2016 at 4:56 PM Print

Works by the pioneering painter and muralist headline fall exhibition schedule

Prominent painter and muralist Archie Rand will headline the fall exhibition series presented by the Galleries at Cleveland State University.

The show, running September 1 through October 8, will include Rand’s groundbreaking series Sixty Paintings from the Bible (1992), which portrays familiar moments from the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha rendered in colorful tones and an expressionistic comic book style that adds a fresh perspective to stories that have shaped human civilization. All 60 paintings have not been exhibited together in almost 25 years. In addition, the Galleries will feature another series by Rand: The Book of Judith (2012), 15 paintings in which Rand depicts the biblical Judith as a paradoxical feminist hero through changing presentations of 1940s pin-ups. It will also feature Archie Rand: The Painted Shul, the 2007 documentary that chronicles Rand’s painting of 8,000 square feet of floor to ceiling murals on the walls of Congregation B’nai Yosef in Brooklyn.

“Archie Rand is widely recognized as the most innovative and prolific painter on Jewish themes today,” notes Samantha Baskind, Professor of Art History at CSU and curator of the exhibitions. “Yet at the same time his themes are universal. Rand’s Sixty Paintings from the Bible series is not didactic religious art, but a post-modern artistic conception that demonstrates how the Bible’s archetypal stories delineate basic human emotions and issues such as power, faith, humility, sexuality, and family dynamics. We are so pleased to have the opportunity to showcase Rand’s art at CSU.”

As part of the exhibition, Baskind wrote and edited a fully illustrated catalog in conjunction with Sixty Paintings from the Bible. The catalog contains color plates of all the paintings in the series, as well as an interpretative essay by Baskind and a reflective essay by Rand.

Archie Rand has been producing art for nearly 50 years and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and made a Laureate of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He has had over one hundred solo exhibitions and his work is housed in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.

The Galleries fall exhibit additionally includes To Speak Her Heart by noted printmakers Leslie A. Golomb and Barbara Broff Goldman. This group of works on paper considers different types of Jewish women’s devotional literature, beginning with the biblical figure of Hannah and journeying throughout the land of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

An opening night reception featuring talks by all three artists will be held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday, September 1. Admittance to the galleries for the exhibition is free and hours of operation are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. The exhibition is presented with funding from the Ohio Arts Council.

The Galleries at CSU are located at 1307 Euclid Avenue in Downtown Cleveland. Located in the historic Cowell and Hubbard building, at the corner of East 13th Street, the Galleries are in the heart of the CSU Arts Campus at Playhouse Square. The elegant, newly restored gallery venue features three distinct exhibition spaces, a multi-purpose media room, a meeting and classroom space, and a study area, as well as state of the art lighting, surround sound, and new-media capabilities.

About Cleveland State University

Founded in 1964, Cleveland State University is a public research institution that provides a dynamic setting for Engaged Learning. With 17,000-plus students, nine colleges and more than 175 academic programs, CSU was again chosen for 2016 as one of America’s best universities by U.S. News & World Report. Find more information at www.csuohio.edu.